Sep. 2019

Capturing the moment Capturing the moment Capturing the moment

Rico Okaniwa/Photographer/Image Creation Division

Photography is an incredible medium with the ability to record time

Rico Okaniwa

Photographer/Image Creation Division

Born in 1992. Graduated from the Department of Communication and Media Studies, College of Sociology at the Rikkyo University. Joined Nippon Design Center in 2015. Was selected for and exhibited at HUNGRY ISSUE.5 LIMITED EDITION (Shibuya, Kyoto, Sapporo) in 2015. Involved with shoots for clients including Toyota, Joshibi University of Art and Design, stone, and more. She enjoys taking photos of people, and can often be found photographing her mother, her friends, and others she meets on her travels. More recently, Rico has also been working hard on video content.

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Hello, my name is Rico Okaniwa. I am a photographer in my fourth year at Nippon Design Center. The project that has stayed with me the most was the site redesign project I helped with for Joshibi University of Art and Design. I was able to share an ambitious vision with the designers and copywriters, and they gave me a sense of the direction they wanted to go in. They would tell me what they wanted to feel or convey through the photos, but gave me free rein over how to handle the shoot. Of course I was able to express our vision, and I was also able to take photos based on my own interpretation of it. The actual shoot was somewhat guerrilla-like; I would ask someone to take their photo, and we would talk during the process. I had no experience with work like this that involved accidental shots. It was great fun, and I think the end results were something truly unique.

Recently, I visited Satoyama Jujo with my mother. I have been taking pictures of my mother since before I started work. There are no clients involved, and I do not show the results to anyone; this just feels like the foundation of photography to me. Every year, I travel and take photos of my mother. It gives me a chance to reset myself and relearn why I am in photography.

To me, taking a photo is like capturing something. Even in day-to-day life, the same moment never comes twice. But if you take a photo, you can record that moment. That is what makes photography such an incredible medium. That is how I got hooked on photography; I never want to forget the feelings of those moments, the excitement I find there. The feelings persists through the photos. I like the lighting, so I take a photo. Or a particular angle strikes me as cute, so I take a photo. I have a strong desire to keep those feelings. In the spur of the moment, I snap a shot.

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